How to Show Battery Percentage on the Top Bar in Ubuntu

When using a laptop powered by Ubuntu, the top system panel displays a compact battery graphic in the status indicator cluster. By default, however, this icon only offers a coarse graphical approximation of remaining energy. It can be remarkably difficult to decipher whether your laptop has 45% or 20% charge left just by glancing at a tiny battery silhouette, leading to sudden low-battery warnings during meetings or study sessions.

Fortunately, the GNOME desktop environment in Ubuntu includes a native toggle to display the exact numerical battery percentage alongside the icon. Enabling this feature ensures you always know your precise power state at a glance. This tutorial walks through activating battery percentage via the graphical Settings application and demonstrates an equivalent single-line terminal command.

Enabling Battery Percentage in Ubuntu Settings

On modern versions of Ubuntu (including 22.04 LTS, 24.04 LTS, and newer releases), activating the indicator requires only a few clicks:

1. Click the Quick Settings / System Menu in the top-right corner of your top panel (the volume, Wi-Fi, and battery cluster).
2. Click the Settings gear icon.
3. In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on Power.
4. Scroll down to the General or Battery section.
5. Locate the setting labelled Show Battery Percentage.
6. Toggle the switch to the On position.

A crisp numerical percentage (e.g. 84%) will immediately appear on your top panel next to the battery silhouette.

Enabling Battery Percentage via Terminal (gsettings)

If you prefer working with the terminal, configuring headless machines, or creating automated setup scripts, you can toggle the setting directly using gsettings:

1. Open the Terminal by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T.
2. Execute the following command:

   gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface show-battery-percentage true

3. The top panel updates immediately without needing a desktop logout or reboot.

To verify that the value was registered correctly, run:

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface show-battery-percentage

The terminal will return true.

Disabling the Battery Percentage Indicator

If you later prefer a cleaner, minimalist top panel layout without numerical indicators:

1. Return to Settings > Power and toggle Show Battery Percentage to Off.
2. Alternatively, execute the following terminal command:

   gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface show-battery-percentage false

The numerical readout will disappear immediately, leaving only the classic battery glyph.